Chapter 6
Detective Marcus Vance closed the manila folder with a crisp snap and tucked it securely back into his brown leather briefcase. He stepped forward, his eyes fixed on Douglas Mercer, who had collapsed onto a gilded wedding chair behind the altar, clutching his chest as if suffering a slow, agonizing blow.
"Mr. Mercer, under federal statute 418 regarding conspiracy to commit falsification of death and obstruction of justice, you and your daughter are both named in the active indictment," Marcus stated professionally, his voice carrying an unyielding weight. "Furthermore, the state prosecutor has already signed off on the upgraded warrant for attempted homicide and arson."
Douglas looked up, tears cutting tracks through the powder on his cheeks. His silver-gray hair was disheveled, his black bow tie crooked. "Caroline... please," he choked out, his voice a pathetic shadow of the powerful billionaire patriarch he had been twenty minutes ago. "We are family. We can fix this quietly. We can transfer the assets... the entire estate..."
"Family?" Caroline laughed—a cold, beautiful, terrifying sound that echoed off the vaulted crystal ceilings of the Saint Aurelia Ballroom. "Where was my family when I woke up screaming in a sterile white basement with my skin melting off? Where was my family when I spent three years learning how to walk and breathe again without a mirror to remind me of what you stole from me?"
Juliette scrambled backward on her knees, her white satin veil catching on a gold ceremonial stand and tearing free from her hair. "Don't touch me! Stay away from me!" she screamed, her eyes wide with animalistic panic as Caroline loomed over her at the top of the altar.
"You signed my death certificate, Juliette," Caroline whispered, her voice dropping to a register so cold that it seemed to lower the temperature in the room. "Now it's time for you to sign yours."
The music in the balcony remained dead silent. The hundreds of elite guests stood frozen in their seats, too paralyzed by the unfolding tragedy to look away, yet too terrified to intervene.
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Marcus clicked the brass latches of his briefcase shut, the sound ringing like a gunshot through the ballroom. "We're done here, Miss Mercer. The federal marshals are waiting outside the main doors. The media vans arrived ten minutes ago."
Juliette let out a blood-curdling scream of pure defeat, collapsing into a heap of white satin and crushed tulle at the base of the wedding altar.
